Blackened Tilapia
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Blackened tilapia makes a super quick and flavorful weeknight meal. You can have it on the table in just 15 minutes!
Tilapia is a flaky, mild-tasting, inexpensive, and readily available white fish that’s super easy to cook and prepare. It is especially good blackened, which doesn’t mean burnt but rather coated in a Cajun-style spice blend that takes on a dark reddish-brown, almost black color when cooked. In this quick and simple recipe, the fish fillets are dusted with a rub made from spices, brown sugar, and salt and then sautéed in olive oil until blackened and flaky.
Serve the blackened tilapia with a vegetable, like roasted asparagus, along with cornbread muffins, cilantro lime rice, hush puppies, or cheddar bay biscuits.
“First time making tilapia this way. Now, it’s gonna be my only way.”
What You’ll Need To Make Blackened Tilapia
Step-by-Step Instructions
Begin by making the Cajun spice rub. In a small bowl, combine paprika, brown sugar, oregano, salt, cumin, garlic powder, and cayenne. Don’t worry about the amount of cayenne — the spice rub has a little kick but the dish won’t be too spicy, even for kids.
Mix to combine.
Evenly dust the spice rub all over the tilapia fillets.
Heat the olive oil in a large nonstick pan, then add the tilapia, presentation side down.
Cook a few minutes per side, until crisp and reddish-brown (“blackened”) on the outside and flaky on the inside.
Enjoy!
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Blackened Tilapia
Ingredients
- 1½ teaspoons paprika
- 1½ teaspoons light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- ¾ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 (6-oz) tilapia fillets
- 1 lime, cut into wedges (optional, for serving)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, for cooking
Instructions
- Combine the paprika, brown sugar, oregano, garlic powder, cumin, cayenne pepper and salt in a small bowl; mix until well combined (use your fingers to break up the lumps of brown sugar). Sprinkle the spice rub evenly over both sides of the tilapia fillets.
- Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a large non-stick pan. Cook the fillets for 2 to 3 minutes on each side until reddish-brown on the outside and flaky on the inside. Serve immediately with lime wedges.
Nutrition Information
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Gluten-Free Adaptable Note
To the best of my knowledge, all of the ingredients used in this recipe are gluten-free or widely available in gluten-free versions. There is hidden gluten in many foods; if you're following a gluten-free diet or cooking for someone with gluten allergies, always read the labels of your ingredients to verify that they are gluten-free.
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5-Star recipe! Restaurant quality. I cooked it in a butter/olive oil combo and it was amazing. Thanks!
Jenn, I am a hugeeee fan of your recipes and don’t know how this recipe has passed me by! Made tonight with fresh haddock and mango salsa from Gimme some oven’s blog and served with jasmine rice and I said yummmmmm every single bite! Thank you so much!!!
Very tasty rub for fish. I’ve made it twice now, first with tilapia and tonight with cod. I serve it on toasted rolls with shredded lettuce and a spicy mayo sauce. My husband told me “DON’T LOSE THIS RECIPE”! Thanks for sharing.
Delicious!!! This came out perfectly. Followed directions and served with wild rice & a salad. Thank you for sharing!
Can we bake instead fry
Sure, Tran. 🙂
Hi Jenn! What would the cooking time and temperature be if we baked the blackened tilapia?
Hi Nicole, if you want to prepare this in the oven, I’d suggest broiling it. I’d coat the fish with a little bit of oil (so that they blacken a bit more) and broil for 5 – 10 minutes depending on the thickness of the fillets. Enjoy!
Hi! Can I use white sugar instead of brown?
Sure, Zoe, in a pinch, white sugar should be fine. Hope you enjoy!
The spice blend is perfect! Not too hot so it should appeal to all. Tilipia I bought was farm raised and was not happy with the quality of fish. Where can a person buy a wild caught tilipia? Will try next time on a good quality wild caught fish. Jenns cooking instructions were spot on!!
If you are interested in which fish are good to eat based on health and environmental impact, check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch website, which is updated regularly. For tilapia, there is less of an issue of it being farmed vs. being caught wild although where and how it is farmed has an impact. See here:
https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recommendations/groups/tilapia?q=Tilapia&t=tila
Our family loves seafood and my background is in biology so we try to pay attention to this stuff. There are certain fish like salmon which are almost always better caught wild while seafood like clams and mussels are almost always perfectly fine farmed. In fact their farming can help the areas they are situated in. Shrimp has a lot of issues
Delicious! Sweet, smokey, and just a little spicy. I make an extra batch of the rub and keep it in my spice cabinet. The lime squeeze at the end is key.
the recipe calls for 10 oz. fish for 4 servings? That’s only a little over 2oz. per serving. could this possibly be a typo?
Hi Susan, Sorry for any confusion; the recipe calls for four 6-oz tilapia fillets. Where are you seeing 10 oz.?
Has anyone used frozen Talapia fillets? It seems like frozen fillets (I have individually vac sealed from Walmart) are usually thinner. I’m inexperienced with making anything “blackened” so I’m wondering if it would be overpowering on a smaller cut of protein.
I’ve used on frozen fillets from Whole Foods. There is usually a thinner and thicker piece. On the thinner one I did use a little less seasoning- but still enough to coat/ and cooked it for less time. Hope that helps!
I am not a fish cooker although I love it. My husband is a truck driver and rarely gets home cooked meals. He had been craving blackened tilapia but wanted it cooked..no restaurants. I found this recipe and we both loved it. I cooked it like a pro. 🙂